Crossposting an Op-Ed I wrote for MassLive. Regretfully, they changed some of the language to be less inflammatory, e.g. "genocide" became "What I believe to be genocide" etc.
UMass chancellor said my military divestment proposal would reach UMass trustees. It didn’t (Viewpoint)
What I believe to be a genocide in Gaza (are you kidding me MassLive) has destroyed the relationship between University of Massachusetts Amherst student leaders and administrators, calling into question the legitimacy of shared governance policy. At UMass Amherst, where I served as student representative to the UMass system Board of Trustees, I believe this erosion of trust is primarily due to Chancellor Javier Reyes and the board itself.
Around the country, we have seen an inspiring movement of student protesters agitating around university endowments. The demand for divestment calls for aligning institutional money and campus resources with the principles we pretend to support, essentially putting our money where our mouth is, and moving our endowment funds and campus resources away from entities that engage in human rights violations.1
The call for divestment echoes historic student movements against apartheid South Africa, and more recently, from fossil fuel companies. UMass Amherst and the Board of Trustees divested from apartheid South Africa in 1985, and supported divestment from fossil fuels in 2016, although the implementation of that one has been dubious. Given the unconscionable human cost in Palestine since Oct. 7, and Israel’s well-documented policies of apartheid, the protesters’ rationale for university divestment remains consistent.
In response to student activism, our student government elections included a referendum question to gauge student opinion about divestment from military contractors and war profiteers. The referendum finished with 2,725 votes — an election turnout unprecedented in my four years in student government — with 73.1% of students supporting divestment.
In addition, the Student Government Association later passed a resolution calling for the administration to divest.
In response to this result, I submitted a resolution to the board that would recommend divesting the endowment from companies profiting from the war in Gaza, Israeli apartheid, and other unconscionable activities. After all, the student body was in support of such a policy by a margin of almost 3:1. Although I submitted it March 29, communication with board officials continuously indicated that there was no progress in getting it onto a meeting agenda.
On May 7, protesters set up a second encampment at UMass Amherst with four demands: disclose ties to weapons contractors, divest from companies and entities that support the Israeli occupation, cut ties with on-campus relationships to those entities, and drop the conduct charges on students arrested at a previous divestment sit-in.
I subsequently forwarded these demands to the Board of Trustees, as they were deserving of our formal consideration, given the national and international context.
In a meeting with encampment student negotiators, Chancellor Reyes emphasized to the protesters that he had gone out of his way to get my divestment proposal on the agenda of the next Board of Trustees meeting, using his position as chancellor to expedite the process.
Reyes is quoted in the meeting minutes, saying, “Trustee Brady’s resolution has been received and will be considered at the June 7 meeting.” Although this promise alone was not enough for protesters to take down their encampment — they also wanted the chancellor to express public support for the divestment process, publicly condemn Israel’s war as genocide and generally negotiate in good faith — they were pleased to know that the board would consider the resolution.
Yet Chancellor Reyes negated that gesture by calling the police, who began to mass near the encampment during the negotiations meeting. Police then arrested 132 peaceful protesters, some brutally.
Additionally, at a special meeting of the UMass Faculty Senate May 14, Chancellor Reyes spoke about the negotiations, saying, “The administration presented to you information regarding your proposal for divestment as submitted by the student trustee to the Board. That item is now on the agenda for the June meeting.”
After this meeting, Chancellor Reyes put his hand on my shoulder and told me we would meet to plan for this board meeting about divestment. This turned out to be the latest of a remarkable series of lies. If there was any doubt about the proposal being on the agenda, then Reyes should’ve clarified before speaking about it to the Faculty Senate.
On June 5, I was shocked to learn that there was in fact no divestment proposal on the board agenda at all.
Board legal counsel cited what I can only describe as an intentionally misleading interpretation of the language of the proposal as the reason for it being withdrawn from consideration. Instead, I was provided the opportunity to “address” the board, but with no divestment action item to be voted on after.
The only reason I found out before the meeting was because I had sent numerous clarifying emails about the proposal presentation. No one had thought to update me with this development. Chancellor Reyes has yet to respond to my request for an explanation. Predictably, when giving this address about divestment at the June 7 meeting, my Zoom mic was muted midway through, with the chair citing “time constraints.”
Over 36,000 Palestinians are dead in Gaza, with thousands more unidentifiable or buried under the rubble; 14,500 of them are children. In fact, there have been more children killed in Gaza than all of the children killed in every conflict across the globe in the past four years combined. There is more rubble in the 25-mile Gaza Strip than all of the rubble in the 880-mile-long Ukraine-Russia front. There have been more bombs dropped on Gaza than all the bombs dropped on Germany in World War II.
University administrators across the country, including Chancellor Reyes and the UMass Board of Trustees, have made it clear that they do not care about this.
Not only are they opposed to divestment, they are opposed to any democratic process which might open the door to divestment.
In my view, Chancellor Reyes lied to his students, faculty, and staff, and the board has tacitly encouraged his deceitfulness every step of the way.
Although my term as student trustee was to end in a few short weeks, and it is perhaps a meaningless gesture, I have resigned from my role.
I am ashamed to have trusted that the university policy of shared governance was legitimate, to have occupied the role of student trustee, and to be affiliated with this university. Free Palestine.
As a UMass faculty, thank you for sharing your story ❤️